Write! Canada 2008: CD of my business course for writers available

Some of the best fun of Write! Canada is my business course, Freelance Survival 101, marketed under a variety of names in different years. (If it's me teaching, chances are the course is the business end of writing.)

The course is fun for me because I get to meet people who are serious about becoming professional writers, hear their stories, help them analyze their hopes and goals, and point them to many tools and trail markers along the way.

I just received a note recently from student Nikki Everts-Hammond who shares an interest in ecology with me. In particular, Nikki, who has a science background, knows that the health of the soil is the health of the garden. Her particular interest is earthworms, on which she blogs, along with other relevant subjects. I did not know, for example, that the common red rigger is an invasive species native to Australia

Eisenia feotida [red wriggler] IS an invader, along with 17 other species, only two are actually native to Ontario. Introduced through commercial cultivation, E. feotida is now found in the wild and was brought in by European settlers a century or two ago. Localized for the most part around human settlements.
E. feotida are indigenous to Australia

Now to business: You can order a CD of the business course (You love writing? Turn your dream into a life!) from Swordfish here for $40 and of my plenary talk for $10. The plenary talk was actually much funnier than the written version here. (No, I don't get royalties; they go to the conference, to help make each edition better than the last. So if you want to be nice to me, feed the Paypal kitty at the top right or check out some of the more interesting blog ads that Google runs.)

The photo at the top left is from my own garden - it is my favourite flower, ipomoea caerulea, the heavenly blue morning glory.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy here: